Diala Passil
Diala Passil Diala is a melee-focused battlefield controller with a moderately tanky statline and a number of Force abilities. She hits the table with 12 Health, 5 Endurance and 4 Speed, but only a white defence die. She has a respectable attribute line, with BG for Strength, a very powerful BGY for Insight, and a poor blue for Tech - these abilities fall to BR, BRG and R when she's wounded, along with the loss of a Speed and an Endurance. She has two traits on the card - Precise Strike, which costs 2 strain to remove a defender's defence die, and Foresight to spend a strain to reroll your own defence dice. You lose Foresight when wounded. Precise Strike is a very powerful combat option, but you have to use it when you declare the attack - you can't wait until after they've rolled. Her starter weapon is the Plasteel Staff, a GY melee weapon with Reach and surges for Stun or +1 damage. Underwhelming, but the early-game access to Stun is worth having. Abilities: 1XP: Force Adept and Force Throw. Force Adept has two abilities - a strain to reroll a die during an attribute test, for you or any friendly figure, and an exhaust while testing Strength or Tech to add a blue die to your test pool. Force Throw is two-strain-and-exhaust, and lets you pick a small figure within 3 spaces and then test Insight. If you pass, push that figure 3 spaces and, if they're hostile, inflict 1 damage. Starting strongly out of the gate, both of these options are world-class. Force Adept neatly covers Diala's weaknesses in testing, and the lack of a range limit on the first ability means that she's boosting the entire team with it. Force Throw, however, might be even better - you've got a better than 95% chance of passing that test, and you can then push any small figure 3 spaces. Darth Vader too close? Step back two, force push three, now he can't move up to you and attack. Need to get an ally to the objective marker? SHOVE, there you go! Force Adept will come in handy in any mission with tests. Force Throw will come in handy in any mission. Whatever your build, you'll probably take both. 2XP: Battle Meditation and Defensive Stance. Battle Meditation triggers whenever you rest to let you test Insight. If you pass (again, 95% chance) you or any friendly figure becomes Focused. Defensive Stance has two sections - Foresight now provides an automatic +1 Block on top of the reroll, and you become Focused whenever you take no damage from an attack. These two passive upgrades are less earth-shattering than the 1XP slots, but they're both powerful. Battle Meditation requires resting, which you're probably not doing more than twice a mission, but you've got a 1/3 chance of dodging any attack (because of Foresight) and a smaller but non-zero chance of dodging any attack. It doesn't exhaust, it doesn't cost strain, and there's a reasonable chance that you'll be Focused at least half the time. Overall, pick Defensive Stance. 3XP: Art of Movement and Snap Kick. Art of Movement applies a passive +1 Speed and grants quasi-Mobile - you ignore difficult terrain and hostile figures when calculating movement costs. Snap Kick exhausts after a melee attack to hit an adjacent hostile figure with a green-die worth of damage. Art of Movement is the superior choice, simply because Snap Kick is too expensive for what it offers. It's not an attack, so you can't Precise Strike with it or use Focus, and it's possible to roll 0 damage on a green die. Art of Movement applies all the time, and helps with positioning for Force Throw. 4XP: Dancing Weapon and Way of the Sarlacc. Dancing Weapon is a special action that also costs strain, and allows you to perform a ranged attack with a melee weapon. You add a blue die to the attack pool and gain a new surge, for +2 Accuracy and +1 damage. Way of the Sarlacc is a special action that costs 2 strain - for each adjacent hostile figure, perform 1 melee weapon attack targetting that figure. And, again, both of these are incredible. Way of the Sarlacc - also called Shii-Cho, Form I, or Determination Form - is a lightsaber fighting style exemplified by Kit Fisto. Here, it's a very powerful pick, especially combined with Art of Movement. Dancing Weapon is also a very solid option, especially if for whatever reason you've not taken Art of Movement - for example, if you're in a melee-focused party, you might be looking for more ranged options. Bear in mind that the Dancing Weapon attack is a ranged attack - it needs Line of Sight, and you require sufficient Accuracy. Special: Shu Yen's Lightsaber. Rolls BR and can surge for Pierce 3 or +1 damage and Cleave 2, and whenever you use Foresight, the attacker suffers 1 damage. Absolutely wonderful, especially because it has a single mod slot so you can slap a balanced hilt on it to chase those surges. Build: The most common build for Diala is Way of the Sarlacc, Art of Movement, Defensive Stance and Force Throw. You can squeeze Force Adept in for a total of 11XP, and that becomes a solid, multifunctional build that covers a lot of bases. Another popular selection is Dancing Weapon, Way of the Sarlacc, Force Adept and Force Throw - you lose a lot of potential Focus here, but it's a combination that can throw out a lot of hits in a single turn. Category:Core Category:Hero Category:Melee